Many groups of researchers have focused on the design of micro turbine engines in recent years. Since turbo-component efficiency becomes very low due to the downsizing effect, an important problem arises of how to obtain thermal efficiency high enough to produce the positive power required. The micro wave rotor is expected to be applied for the improvement of the performance of ultra micro gas turbines, increasing the cycle pressure ratio. Wave rotors can also be built in another configuration. Applying only a combustion chamber and using oblique blades to form the rotor cells, net power can be taken from the rotor. In that way, the use in a micro scale of an inefficient turbo unit can be omitted. Such a solution in a form of wave engine was developed and practically realised by Weber [ 15] and Pearson [8], [9], [ IO] in centimetre scale. Conventional construction of wave engines in a form of wave rotor can not be directly realized in MEMS technology. The new idea of a wave disk developed by Piechna, Akbari, Iancu,and Mueller [II] and independently by Nagashima and Okamoto [7] gives the possibility of easy implementation of the wave engine idea in MEMS technology. In the proposed solution, the wave disk plays the role of an active compressiondecompression unit and torque generator. Appropriate port geometry with oblique blades forming the disk channels generates torque. The engine disk rotates with a speed much lower than the conventional turbo-unit that simplifies the bearing problem. Also, the construction of electric generator can be simpler. The paper presents the proposed flow schemes, thermodynamic cycle, exemplary engine construction and some results of simulation of the MEMS wave engine using the wave disk.

This article focuses on the infrequent but intriguing phenomenon in the 19th century history of residential architecture in the Congress Kingdom, which decorated the facades of the landed gentry’s residences with sculpted portraits of outstanding Poles. The main subject of analysis is its most spectacular example – the Sancygniów Palace near Pińczów, built for Andrzej Deskur in 1882 from the designs by the Warsaw architect Adam Oczkowski. The author argues with Magdalena Swaryczewska’s older thesis recognizing the historical decor of the palace as the “manifestation of independence and the relentless spirit of fighting patriots” in the “difficult post-uprising times”. Getka-Kenig demonstrates that it is a simplified interpretation, which does not explain the possible motives and goals, for which Deskur – a wealthy, but devoid of any aristocratic ambitions veteran of the Pińczów County uprising – decided at that time on such an unusual form of manifesting his patriotism. The author shows that Deskur’s ambitious undertaking took place in a very specific context, both local and national (within the Congress Kingdom). However, in order to properly determine the place of the Sancygniów Palace and its specific decoration in the history of the 19th-century residential architecture, a diachronic analysis of this phenomenon is required, in this case a comparison with earlier and similar buildings – Ludwik Pac’s palace in Dowspuda and the Eliza Krasińska’s palace in Ursynów. As a result, the historical decoration of the palace in Sancygniów appears to be a special type of manifestation of the landed gentry’s experience of modernity, evolving over the period of the partitions of Poland. Both the case of Sancygniów and the earlier similar projects, coincided in time with the moments of political crisis of the landowning elite – in the first two cases the nobility, in the third case the rich landowners distancing themselves from it – when confronted with the gradual weakening of their once superior position in the struggle for independence. The phenomenon of the palace in Sancygniów can thus be considered on the two complementary levels, which helps us to appreciate the exceptional value of this monument of the nineteenth century residential architecture. It is not only a strictly artistic value (above all in terms of the originality of the project), but also and to an equal extent, a historical one.